Benefits of Exercise and Mental Health

Background

• The Endorphin Hypothesis:• Endorphins are released during exercise and

they have been known to improve a persons mood. More exercise therefore causes more endorphins to be released, thus making the person more happy.

• This can relate to exercise influencing people suffering from mental health issues and illnesses in a positive way.

Key Study:Leith and Taylor(1990)

• Aim: to review 10 years worth of research studies into the effects of exercise on mental health to discover consistent findings, as well as assessing the findings and evaluating the methodology used.

• Procedure:• 81 projects were reviewed • These were then categorised into 3 groups based the system

categorisation study by Campbell and Stanley(1963)• The 3 categories were:- Pre-experimental research- Quasi-experimental research- Experimental research

Results

• Pre- experimental: 7/9 studies showed significant improvement.

• Quasi-experimental: 36/46 studies showed significant improvements.

• Experimental: 13/26 studies showed significant improvements and a further 5 showed partial improvements.

• 70% of studies reported showed significant improvement.

Conclusion

• The 70% increased to 80% when partial improvement were also added.

• Only 50% was a significant improvement in Experimental where as pre-experimental had 78% significant improvement.

• Leith & Taylor also stated that fitness improvements, type and duration of exercise need to be measured when researching more studies.

Real life Application

• These results can be used to help improve the state of mind of someone with a mental health problem and help the person to use exercise to change the persons mood.